Kolkata: West Bengal

Kolkata, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal and was capital of British India until 1912. The city’s name was officially changed from Calcutta to Kolkata in January 2001. Despite the new name being phonetically closer to the Bengali version, many people and organisations still refer to it as Calcutta, which is the usual name for the city in English. In Hindi, the city is referred to as Kalkatta.

Kolkata also refers to the name of the Kolkata administrative district of West Bengal that part of the city lies in. The urban agglomeration of Kolkata covers several municipal corporations, municipalities, city boards and villages and is the third largest urban agglomeration in India after Mumbai and Delhi. As per the census of 2001, the urban agglomeration’s population was 13,216,546 while that of the city (Municipal Corporation of Kolkata) was 4,580,544. Kolkata city’s population growth has been pretty low in the last decade.

The city is situated on the banks of the Hoogli River (a distributary of the Ganges). Some of the renowned engineering marvels associated with Kolkata include the bridges that span across this river to its twin city of Howrah (which is routinely considered as part of greater Kolkata): the Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu), Vivekananda Setu and Vidyasagar Setu.

History
Kolkata’s history is intimately related to the British East India Company, which first arrived in 1690, and to British India, of which Calcutta became the capital in 1772. In the nineteenth century Calcutta was the epicentre of activity in the early stages of the national movement of independence. Kolkata remained in the forefront of Indian prosperity up to independence and for some more years afterwards before the population pressure on infrastructure and political disturbances led to a gradual decline. A violent and bloody Marxist-Maoist movement known as the Naxal movement (after Naxalbari, the place where it first started) in the 1970s left the city badly bruised. The city’s recovery process gathered steam after India’s liberalization in the early nineties.

Geography

Kolkata is located in the eastern part of India at 22°82′N 88°20′E. It has spread linearly along the banks of the river Hooghly. The Kolkata Municipal Corporation has an area of 185 square kilometres. The city proper today can be roughly divided into two sections along Mother Teresa Sarani (Park Street). North of Park Street is the more congested part of the city. South of Park Street is the slightly better planned section of the city.

The old Kolkata Business District (CBD) is where the seat of the West Bengal Government is located, along with many other government offices. Several banks have their corporate (Allahabad Bank, United Bank of India, UCO Bank) or regional headquarters (Reserve Bank of India, State Bank of India, Bank of India, Central Bank of India amongst many others) around the B.B.D. Bagh (Dalhousie) area. Many of Kolkata’s older business groups have their main offices here. The area is a mix of multi-storeyed office blocks and colonial buildings.

The newer CBD is around the south of Park Street,Camac Street and AJC Bose Road. Several high-rise office blocks including some of Kolkata’s tallest commercial buildings – like the Chatterjee International Centre, Tata Centre, Everest House, Industry House, CGO Building – are located here.

Maidan (open field) is situated between the river Ganges and J.L. Nehru Road (or Chowringhee). It is said to be the lungs of Calcutta. The lush green meadow also houses Victoria Memorial, Eden Gardens, and several other sporting clubs. Calcuttans simply love to stroll in the Maidan.

In an effort to relieve congestion in the main city, many government offices have shifted to high-rise office buildings lining Bidhan Nagar’s (Salt Lake) Central Park.

The residential buildings are mainly lowrise and comprise of older colonial buildings and numerous new four storey apartment blocks. Ten to twelve storey apartment blocks have come up in large numbers in south Kolkata. The city has relaxed its rules on highrise construction recently and twenty storey buildings are becoming more common. The tallest residential towers of eastern India – the four thirty-five-storey towers of South City are under construction on Prince Anwar Shah Road.

Huge construction activity along the Eastern Metropolitan Bypass is changing the face of the city. Luxury hotels, a convention centre, speciality hospitals, condominium complexes, malls and multiplexes are coming up at a rapid pace.

The city’s expansion in the eastern side is spearheaded by the construction of a huge new city called New Town adjacent to the well planned Bidhan Nagar. Located in Rajarhat, it is one of the largest planned urban developments in India.

The neglected western side of the urban agglomeration has got a boost recently with the signing of an agreement with an Indonesian company to build the West Kolkata International Township. Another huge new township is in the proposal state in Dankuni.

Slums and dilapidated structures exist in many pockets of the city proper and house over 25% of the city’s population (Census 2001). Slum redevelopment schemes have helped improve living conditions to a slight extent but there is huge scope for improvement in this area. Efforts to shift slum dwellers to newer developments have often met with resistance and failure because many of the slums are in prime areas of the city and the slum dwellers who are integrated in the social structure of the neighbourhood do not want to shift.